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I recognize the importance of studying your enemy’s tactics, but I’m an economist so I also recognize the importance of opportunity cost. I have not read the National Catholic Reporter since I knew enough about its dissenting approach and chose to steer clear. With only so many minutes in the day, with authors like St. Francis de Sales, Brother Lawrence, St. Teresa of Avila, Fr. Thomas Dubay, Peter Kreeft, etc., and even with periodicals like the National Catholic Registerand Catholic Answers Magazine, why waste time getting your soul dirty when you can be cleaning it up?

The National Catholic Reporter, Bishop Finn remarks, has taken an editorial stance that puts the publication at odds with the Church, by “officially condemning Church teaching on the ordination of women, insistent undermining of Church teaching on artificial contraception and sexual morality in general, lionizing dissident theologies while rejecting established Magisterial teaching, and a litany of other issues.”

I know dissenters will claim that the Church is squashing “alternative views” again, just like it did with the LCWR. But you can’t say the Reporter wasn’t warned:

Bishop Finn reminds his readers that in 1968 his predecessor, Bishop Charles Helmsing, directed the editors of the Reporter to remove the word “Catholic” from the title of their publication. The newspaper’s editors refused. Bishop Finn says: “From my perspective, NCR’s positions against authentic Church teaching and leadership have not changed trajectory in the intervening decades.”

Forgive me for quoting myself, but perhaps Reporter devotees enamored with its dissent will finally give up the label:

Counterintuitively, the presence of awesome JPII and Benedict bishops and priests, great Catholic communicators (Scott Hahn and company, orthodox Catholic blogs), and modern applications of authentic Church teaching (Vatican II documents, Theology of the Body, the Catechism) will actually serve to magnify the divide between living a true Catholic life and simply living secular but calling oneself “Catholic.” Since it is now so easy to demonstrate the flaws of “pro-choice Catholics,” of the hermeneutics of suspicion or disruption, and of the viability of remaining a “dissenting Catholic,” it is that much easier for people to realize that they are not, in fact, Catholic despite the label they gave themselves while growing up.

In the Catholic Church – in a bishop’s diocese – the bishop’s opinion is the only opinion that matters. The editors and reporters of the NCRep act like the organization possesses the authority of a bishop. Sorry to burst anyone’s bubble: it does not possess any such authority. The organization’s prior bad acts, too numerous to list here, are crass attempts to undermine the legitimate authority of the hierarchy (or at least attempt to obscure Catholic teaching regarding authority in the Church) by promoting dissenting views as equal to official Catholic teaching. Those who represent the NCRep act like it is entitled to refer to itself as a Catholic organization. It is most definitely not a Catholic organization for the reasons cited: promotion of (not merely reporting) dissenting views; and presenting itself as an alter-magisterium.

As a successor to the apostles, which is what a Catholic bishop is, Bishop Finn has the right and obligation to protect his flock – note, HIS flock! – from heretics and schismatics. Furthermore, if someone doesn’t like the Catholic Church’s hierarchical structure which is ordained by Christ, then that same someone should reevaluate their take on things, or simply take a hike.

Trust me, a vast number of “Catholics” world wide, have “taken a hike.” The coffers of the Catholic Church are beginning to dry up due to the unending suppression of women and the sexual abuse cover-up, among many other things. The only thing that will truly cause the Church to change will be the money, as has always been the case. There will be a shift in Catholic doctrine as soon as the coffers run dry. The Church, of course, will claim that God caused this shift but we will all know the truth.

Marvin, on another post you asked me where I got my facts concerning demographics and now I ask you, where do you get your facts for your assertions? Millions of us throughout the world continue to go to Mass every Sunday and we continue to help our parishes monetarily. I go to Costa Rica every year and the churches are packed during Mass and people give what they can, so, where do you get the idea that one billion Roman Catholics are allowing the “coffers” of the Church to dry up?
You accuse the Church of changing only by accepting money, but where is your proof to that slander? Where, in the 2000 year history of the Church have you seen a shift in Catholic doctrine because supposedly the Church lacks money? I should know, I’ve been teaching church history for 27 years!
If there is one thing I love about Catholicism, is that it does not move with the shifting sands of the times. It teaches eternal truths and some of those truths are not always popular. Like her Master, the Church is a sign of contradiction and even in the worse days of the papacy, it remained so in spite of what revisionist historians would like to tell you.
Go speak to the average Catholic woman and ask her about her suppression? Go and ask any Catholic teenager or child and ask him if he has been sexuallly molested lately.
Your anti-Catholicism is showing. Legitimate criticims is one thing, the type of slander you are engaing in is another. Your distate for the Church is obvious and yet I presume you want to maintain a dialogue with faithful Catholics.
What does someone who never goes to Mass and does not care one hoot about the Church know about her finances. Is there something you know the rest of us don’t?

“are crass attempts to undermine the legitimate authority of the hierarchy.” And that’s exactly what they have been doing for years. Even when the Pope issues an encyclical dealing with social justice, a subject the Reporter loves, they still attack the Pope and simply state he does not know what he is talking about, but the editors of the paper, well, the do know what they are talking about.

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